Top-down shooter/RPG project

The new site change with free blogs has prompted me to finally try this whole blog thing out. As good a time as ever, I say! I had been quiet on the development front due to a little thing called college and all that it entails. But this new site hasn't just sparked my blogging interests, but also my programming interests. In short, I am now actively working on a game.

It's something I started out a little while ago and never really took very far. It was meant to be an introduction to networking. Now I have a small vision for this project; a multiplayer, 2D top-down shooter with Borderlands-like loot and leveling.

Since I literally have no art, I won't be posting any sweet pictures, but the game has a skeleton of functionality, so to speak. I've attached my very rudimentary working version. Run server.exe to play the game. WASD moves, mouse shoots, number keys select weapons (pistol, rifle, sniper, shotgun - in that order). Starting client.exe and giving the IP of a server version will let multiple people "play" together. Just a warning - my naive networking code means that this might not run anywhere that there is even moderate packet loss. LANs should work fine though.



Who am I kidding, no one wants to play a game with essentially no content! But I would like some feedback on the design process. I've got a good generic system for weapons with varying stats, and I want to hook into the Diablo-style stats minmaxing addictiveness. Would you prefer new weapons to be random loot (like Borderlands) or to be XP-based customizable upgrades to base weapons (like skill trees in RPGs)?